


After the Harshest of Winters

by tchallabucky (PuppyWillGraham)



Series: stevebucky drabbles [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Fem!Steve, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Stucky - Freeform, creative writing, fem!Bucky, stevebucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 18:52:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3300038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuppyWillGraham/pseuds/tchallabucky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Asset has since escaped it's handlers and owners, wanting it's oldest friend to help in it's recovery.</p><p>[[A solo/starter posted on my fem!post-WS!Bucky Barnes Twitter RP account.]]</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Harshest of Winters

It comes in flashes, at first. Fractured bits of information causing The Asset's head to spin, making it feel slightly dizzy and leaving it breathless when it awakens from the night terrors that had started to plague it.

Ever since it'd started to remember.

It soon becomes apparent that 'information' is the wrong term to use. What it starts to remember; it's familiar, it's calming, and it soon realizes that these are what memories are.

It'd forgotten what it felt like to have those.

It spends its nights tossing and turning, tangled in bed sheets that didn't belong to it, silent screams catching in it's throat when it's finally wrenched from the clutches of what nobody should ever experience, in an abandoned apartment that also doesn't belong to it.

It takes a long time for it to feel comfortable enough to identify itself with a gender, a name. It had been only known as The Asset for longer; it wasn't a human, or even a pet, but merely a weapon. Nobody gave their weapon a gender or a name, not when they had no attachement to it, and nobody had a use for a weapon 24/7.

There were still gaps in it's memory, frozen in time like it was when it wasn't needed. It doesn't know, but that is whenever it was put into cryo. Those are the gaps that shall stay permanent for the rest of it's life.

After looking at it's memorial board in the Smithsonian...it realizes it used to be a female named Jane Buchanan Barnes. 'Janey' to the one she used to call her best friend and partner, Stephanie Rogers.

The one she remembered on the bridge, even if it was just a hint of a recognition at the time. But it was enough; it was like fingers hooking over the edge of a door that had been left ajar, slyly keeping it open, even as The Asset had been wiped once more.

But it had been enough, as displayed on her final mission. The one she couldn't finish, and she'd saved the target instead. Her handlers and owners wouldn't have liked that result at all, and so she scarpers.

Months pass before she silently and stealthily follows her old friend, keeping an eye on her, as she was once often wont to do. That is a habit long buried within her, unable to break it even after being separated for over 70 years.

Her oldest and closest friend, and she sometimes can't help but to wonder...if they were ever more than just friends. She's curious, as is to be expected.

She still doesn't let her presence be known; being a ghost was another habit, and old habits die hard, even if that one was never meant to be one of hers.

Almost a year passes before she finds a way to sneak into Stephanie Rogers' apartment. A window...another habit, just like when they'd been kids. She wrings her hands nervously together as she takes a seat on the couch, slumping tiredly against the back of it, barely able to keep her eyes open.

Just as she'd been doing a lot lately, she thinks to herself;

Janey Barnes died when she fell off of that train. The Asset was slowly becoming dormant, dying. Jane Buchanan Barnes...seemed like the next best thing for her to be. What she desperately wanted to be, with Stephanie Rogers' help.


End file.
